Man, this is getting close! I told some old grognards in my area that the CKG is about to go to print...to which they laughed and said "Yeah, right!"; these are the guys that love the S&W and retrostuff but have had an eye on C&C for some time, so I know that the CKG coming out will turn a lot of heads, particularly guys in this camp who, for reasons already expounded upon, erroneously see Castles and Crusades as cool but incomplete game.

According to a rumor I've heard (Facebook, Twitter), the test copies of TLG's hardback books (the CKG included) came out great. Looks like these bad boys will be rolling off the press now any day. All systems seem go!

Omote wrote:According to a rumor I've heard (Facebook, Twitter), the test copies of TLG's hardback books (the CKG included) came out great. Looks like these bad boys will be rolling off the press now any day. All systems seem go!

~O

I'm hoping they got a whole batch ran on Friday and got them out the door Friday night.

I covered this a bit in the youtube video. But these guys are printing now. Mark is taking the binding real slow until he gets the hang of it. He's becoming Scotty around here....I sit in the Captains Chair, hit the intercom and shout "MARK I NEED 42 digest sized fold out of the 1999 screen addition! How long will it take you." His reply is usually unscotty like..."Man I think the earth gravity is getting worse, I feel like its dragging me down." (he really said that to me today).

Steve

_____________________________
He Who Sits on the Elephants Back
The Troll Lord
Steve Chenault, President & CEO of Chenault & Gray Publishing, Troll Lord Games

Troll Lord wrote:I covered this a bit in the youtube video. But these guys are printing now. Mark is taking the binding real slow until he gets the hang of it. He's becoming Scotty around here....I sit in the Captains Chair, hit the intercom and shout "MARK I NEED 42 digest sized fold out of the 1999 screen addition! How long will it take you." His reply is usually unscotty like..."Man I think the earth gravity is getting worse, I feel like its dragging me down." (he really said that to me today).

Steve

Ya' know, maybe you aught to get your arse out of that Captain's chair and go help Mark in the "engine" room so I can get my CKG a little bit faster.

As many of you know we are in the binding process for the CKG. We've pulled some amazingly long days (20 hours for Tim and I this past Friday) for the last 2 weeks. We've basically been working out kinks and problems and attempting to learn this new craft. The sad thing is that we did not have time (largely due to releases schedules for the trade market) to allow ourselves more time to learn this new craft. So many mistakes were made and much knowledge learned the only real way you can learn it...by getting ass deep into it and figuring it out. Which we've done, and then some.

All good fun and frustration and all that.

I won't go into all the problems we've had...almost everything chose now to break, from our cover printer to the dolly, Davis even managed to break our Goliath of a cutter, no easy task that...but they have certainly added to the time table. Multiple problems existed but a board warping was the worse. The board tended to curl up from the book block. This was largely due to the glue mixture and type.

On Saturday afternoon we thought we broke through and produced the first solid copies of the book. We waited for the book to settle and it did and it looked great. So we did another one following the same procedure and it worked great. Starting late Saturday night we began mass producing these things. It was just Tim and I at this point and we pumped out about 40 in no time. Great fun, excitement, etc etc. These are the pics the frog gave you. [url+http://yfrog.com/hs2r2vij]Frog[/url].

However, Sunday morning arrived and a slight curling had occurred. The books had continued to settle. With even more determination and now with Davis arriving (he's real good with all sorts of chemicals) we returned to the drawing board. We discovered the board the manufacture sold us was chip board, not davey board. And that, more than likely, accounts for the warping. As company quartermaster this is my fault I should have been more diligent in what product we were ordering (he used the word board, so the sales rep probably assumed I knew, even as I assumed he know etc etc). I've posted the pics below. Note: the glue on the cover wipes off, this book was not wiped down after set.

So where this leaves us is with board that warps and another few days before we can get new board in. Which delays the CKG yet again.

Now, you guys have been insanely patient. 5 years for some, months for many pre-orders. We really appreciate that. You don't know how much joy we take out of making games for this crew, that being you guys.

But I know also that it is time to get these books into your hands. With that in mind. I'm going to offer up these options for pre-order folks:

1) We can offer you a full refund with shipping and you can order again in the next few weeks after it is definitely out.

2) You can take a partial refund of $10.00 + 1/2 of your shipping and we can get you a perfect bound edition out by Thursday. We are UV coating covers tomorrow for these and they need a day or so to dry real good before we bind them.

3) We can ship you one of the books we have already printed. Please check out the photos below and make sure you are happy with the book. If you are we will ship it immediately as is. For your pains we'll toss in something free here.

4) Wait another week or such. We will ship when we are happy with final product.

Again, I appreciate your patience in this and completely understand any and all frustration.

Steve

Post Script: This same problem has carried over to the MT of Aihrde and Gods and Monsters. But the fix for those books is much easier and we can ship those on Wednesday/Thursday with no problem.

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_____________________________
He Who Sits on the Elephants Back
The Troll Lord
Steve Chenault, President & CEO of Chenault & Gray Publishing, Troll Lord Games

Since its 20,000 I suggest "Captain Nemo" as his title. Beyond the obvious connection, he is one who sails on his own terms and ignores those he doesn't agree with...confident in his journey and goals.
Sounds obvious to me! -Gm Michael

To kind of restate what I said on Facebook, feel free to throw in one of those warped ones if your going to trash them anyways into my order. You know, to compensate me for all of these waiting pains I have gone through. Again, if your just going to destroy them anyways.

Since its 20,000 I suggest "Captain Nemo" as his title. Beyond the obvious connection, he is one who sails on his own terms and ignores those he doesn't agree with...confident in his journey and goals.
Sounds obvious to me! -Gm Michael

Relaxo wrote:Steve,
To be clear, the options you listed above, do you mean to get a group vote, or a case-by case vote?

Those are case by case.

Steve,

Save on shipping, hold my books until everything is ready, besides I already have everything else besides the CKG in the SC prints and from that PDF sale, so all I am really in need of anyways is the CKG.

Since its 20,000 I suggest "Captain Nemo" as his title. Beyond the obvious connection, he is one who sails on his own terms and ignores those he doesn't agree with...confident in his journey and goals.
Sounds obvious to me! -Gm Michael

Relaxo wrote:Steve,
To be clear, the options you listed above, do you mean to get a group vote, or a case-by case vote?

Those are case by case.

Steve,

Save on shipping, hold my books until everything is ready, besides I already have everything else besides the CKG in the SC prints and from that PDF sale, so all I am really in need of anyways is the CKG.

Thanks Tree! To be sure we'll throw something in these CKG boxes when they do ship for everyone's pains. I"m not sure what yet, but good lord something to get the company karma back into wack. ;0

Steve

_____________________________
He Who Sits on the Elephants Back
The Troll Lord
Steve Chenault, President & CEO of Chenault & Gray Publishing, Troll Lord Games

I'm willing to wait as well. Don't beat yourselves up too much... we know you guys are still learning the process. Once you get over the learning curve I've no doubt future releases will be that much easier.